Buried face-down. A statue from Göbekli Tepe’s southwestern hilltop

Starting from 2007 new excavation areas were opened at Göbekli Tepe´s southwestern hilltop. They were meant to get a better understanding of the architecture of the tell – would the stratigraphical situation from the southeastern excavation areas repeat here? And indeed, soon buildings characteristic for the younger Layer II appeared.

Many of the rectangular or ssemi-rectangular buildings discovered at Göbekli Tape show evidence of rebuilding, repairing or further modification. One very large room, discovered in area L9-17, for instance was at some point in its life-cycle subdivided by two walls into one large approximately square central room with two adjacent smaller chambers. No entries to these chambers could be identified, but an access through the roof is a possibility. In the eastern chamber soon a pillar…